About Jason Thibeault

Hi! I'm a tech guy, skeptic, feminist, gamer and atheist, and love OSS and science of all stripes. I enjoy a good bit of whargarbl now and again, and will occasionally even seek it out. I am also apparently responsible for the death of common sense on the internet. My bad.

I have opinions. So do you. You want to share them with me. I would like to do likewise. Please don't expect a platform for proselytizing that will go unchecked and unchallenged, though. Contact me via the clicky thingies under my banner.

The commenting rules are simple: don't piss me off. This rule has worked for me for a decade; I have never found a need for any other rule, because any other rules leads to rules-lawyering. Just remember -- this is my property, not yours.

Draw Muhammad Day – May 20, 2010

And I explain why drawing Muhammad isn’t even all that bad, unless you’re some sort of complete nutter that values fan-fiction over the canonical fiction that started your religion. Yes, this is like those children on the internet who prefer their Fox Mulder / Jean Luc Picard slash fiction to the real deal. Exactly like that.

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About the author

Hi! I'm a tech guy, skeptic, feminist, gamer and atheist, and love OSS and science of all stripes. I enjoy a good bit of whargarbl now and again, and will occasionally even seek it out. I am also apparently responsible for the death of common sense on the internet. My bad.

I have opinions. So do you. You want to share them with me. I would like to do likewise. Please don't expect a platform for proselytizing that will go unchecked and unchallenged, though. Contact me via the clicky thingies under my banner.

The commenting rules are simple: don't piss me off. This rule has worked for me for a decade; I have never found a need for any other rule, because any other rules leads to rules-lawyering. Just remember -- this is my property, not yours.

I can’t view the video from this computer, and will have to watch it later when I’m not at work. I’m confident that it doesn’t contain anything exceptional that would change my views on the post in general, though. I did read the previous post and I agree with it, although the content is not the core reason for my post here.

I gotta admit, I find this post offensive. It’s not that I disagree that it’s ridiculous to get as worked up over something as seemingly simple, but rather, I’m offended that the only reason to do so is TO OFFEND them. It’s like “lets go eat meat in front of vegetarians Day” or “let’s go burn a flag in front of a Veterans hospital Day”. It’s harrassment, plain and simple. If you hate their beliefs so much, why would you want to spend the extra time bothering them about it?

Free Speech is a precious commodity that should be trusted to and guarded by good taste. Using it to force your views on someone else who is not willing to be convinced falls far outside of this. Yes, you should have the right and freedom to publish anything. But Yes, you should also have the good judgment not to publish something for no reason other than to offend.

Now, before you start linking articles about descriminatory and inflammatory publications from religionsly-controlled nations that are doing the exact same thing (and worse), know that I don’t exactly see eye-to-eye with them on that, either. After the affair with a Christian newspaper publishing the word “Allah” and almost being burned to the ground, with many threats against both the staff there and the courts that supported their right to free speech, a few details came to light that I don’t think most Muslims are aware of. Here is some interesting reading, summarized by the writer for those who have limited office time to partake in such indulgences. 😛

The post you linked from your April 22nd article was quite informative and well written. I fully agree with the message that ignorance has clouded over knowledge and caused people to be sensitive about topics that they clearly haven’t actually read for themselves.

Overall, I’m just trying to say that if something bothers somebody, bugging them about it BECAUSE it bothers them is not a way to be the better person. Educate them about it, but don’t throw salt in their eyes to teach them about safety goggles. If they choose not to learn and to hate you for it, you’ve tried and that makes you the better person.

You find this post offensive very likely because you couldn’t see the video. The day is a counterprotest, a thumb in the eye of people who think they can repress free speech by feigning outrage and threatening violence. It comes after five years of such, when one such protest actually managed to get everyone to walk on eggshells for fear of being bombed by the terrorists that make up the fundamentalist part of the Muslim religion. Seriously, if we don’t counterprotest, the terrorists win. In a very real sense.

If vegetarians started protesting about meat-eaters’ existence and started firebombing McDonalds… oh wait, PeTA. And I thumbed their eye too.

I did not draw to offend (see link above); that would’ve been easy enough.

I drew because I support the values of free speech and rule of (civil) law that stem from the Enlightenment and to reinforce that I will not be intimidated by those that make death threats due to their thin skin over what any reasonable person considers innocuous behavior.

Remember, the prohibition against representational depictions of Muhammad is not from the Qu’ran, but from the Hadith (alleged sayings of the prophet.) Not all hadith are accepted by all Muslims; which sect or branch of Sharia accepts which hadith is a matter of Islamic jusrisprudence which is a far more complex topic than can be explained here. The upshot is that not all Muslims take offense at pictures of Muhammad. So unless intentionally draws a profane picture of the prophet, it’s not clear that just drawing Muhammad is an intentionally offensive act to all Muslims or even to the majority of Muslims.

But yes, in a lot of ways Everybody Draw Mohammed Day is a middle finger to those who expect the rest of us to not exercise our freedom of speech because they (or someone else) might take offense or make death threats against us.

Actually, I think I drew Muhammad more as a message to people who think like you do than to Muslims.

The lesson being taught here is that in the West you don’t have the right not to be offended and that your deeply-held and sincere religious beliefs do not and shall not take precedence over the basic human right of free expression.

The expectation that I should not speak since it may offend someone offends my deeply-held and sincere belief in the values of the Enlightenment. So why is the offense I feel less valuable than that felt by many Muslims? Would people take my concerns more seriously if I made some death threats?

Further to Bob: I gave you an open forum to dissent against my opinion. I WANT discussion of these opinions. And no matter how wrong you are, I’m not going to censor you. (Unless you get spammy like Zdenny.)

I fully agree with you on that. I’m not above telling someone who preaches to me to not drag their teeth so much when they so obviously want to blow me, but I’m just saying that I will not go out of my way to bother someone who has a belief that will rarely, if ever, conflict with anything that I can ever see myself doing.

Will I ever need to depict the prophet Mohammed? I’m guessing no. So that’s win-win for myself and the whole nation of Islam, as well as people who don’t enjoy art in simple forms. Knowing that it would piss them off if I did it doesn’t inspire me to do it more. If there was a solid reason for me to do so, I would do it, regardless of reaction, and see above statement about those who preach to me when I do not desire for them to do so. I just don’t consider “let’s see how much shit we can stir” to be a good reason to offend someone. That was funny when I was 15, I’m 33 now, and I don’t enjoy listening to grief.

A counter protest is definitely warranted; I’d just like to see a more tasteful medium.

One of the reasons I drew what I did was to intentionally treat the subject matter with respect, specifically to avoid criticism of Muslim-bashing.

I too am interested in discussion because it’s still far from settled how extremists and intolerant minorities can be integrated into an otherwise tolerant Western liberal democracy. Is it xenophobia or racism to promote basic human rights to those who don’t value them? Is racism even a meaningful term regarding anti-Muslim sentiment (i.e. is the objection to religion also an objection to race?) What is the proper degree or means of cultural accommodation? And in a conflict of values, who should win? What’s more important – the most freedom or the least offense?

I know where I stand but I’m not sure I have the best intellectual footing; that more than anything is why I’d like to see some of these issues explored.

I doubt I’m on much better intellectual footing. In fact I’d suspect I’m on shakier footing what with my smashmouth debating style. But it takes all the units we have to counter all the units on this debate’s opposing side.

I take it that, with the large amount of views and comments in the relatively short time span that this post has been up, and the comparitively small amount of views and comments (probably due to lack of refreshing), that you folks are all in agreement on my Prayer Part 2 post?

[…] investigating Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, for his part in allowing the user-driven Draw Muhammad day. Of course, under Pakistan’s penal code, for facilitating a derogatory remark about Muhammad, […]